Download 5th-8th grade chaparral curriculum guide. This is the stand alone

The Chaparral Habitat
For Young Chaparralians
California
grizzly
bear
From S. Snyder (2003)
Wrentit
Red diamond rattlesnake
Ceanothus silk moth (K. Wolfe)
Ceanothus chaparral in bloom
Photos and text by Richard W. Halsey unless otherwise noted
Life in the Shrublands
You may be surprised to
discover that the most common
habitat in California is the
chaparral. It is made up of
beautiful, woody shrubs like
manzanita and mountain lilac, is
home to the California condor,
bobcats and cougars, and has a
wonderful assortment of song birds,
reptiles and insects. It was also
where the California grizzly bear
once roamed.
Chaparral forms a dense
cover of shrubs over many hills and
mountains along the coast and on
the slopes of inland valleys. It can
The California Chaparral Institute
be found all the way from southern
Oregon to Baja California in
Mexico. The chaparral shrub cover
is often so solid that hills look like
they are covered with green
velvet. Every once and a while
you'll see a few trees like big-cone
Douglas fir punching through the
chaparral in canyons, but for the
most part, trees are very rare.
Chaparral shrubs are quite
tough. They can survive long
periods without rain and can even
recover from fire as long as the
flames do not come too often.
Rain in the chaparral almost
always falls in late autumn and
winter, rarely in the summer. This
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Chaparral habitat in blue. Map from J.E. Keeley
and F.W. Davis. 2007.
is unusual because most habitats
in the world receive a lot of rain
during the summer months.
Living with Heat and Fire
This special combination of
hot, dry summers and mild, wet
winters is called a Mediterraneantype climate. There are only five
places on earth that have it:
California, central Chile in South
America, parts of southern
Australia, South Africa, and the
lands around the Mediterranean
Sea. To survive this type of
climate, many chaparral shrubs
have small, tough leaves with
waxy coatings to prevent water
The California Chaparral Institute
loss. Nearly all chaparral shrubs
are evergreen, meaning they keep
most of their leaves all year.
However, in the dry months of
summer and autumn, some
chaparral shrubs, like mountain
lilac, drop nearly half their leaves.
Less leaves means less water will
be lost through evaporation. The
leaves on other shrubs, like black
sage, curl up and look dead. In
fact, many plants in the chaparral
look dead in the dry season, but
they are actually just dormant to
conserve their moisture. Their
stems are still green inside.
By mid-winter, after the first
few rain storms have soaked the
ground, chaparral plants will begin
to sprout new leaves. As early as
December, shrubs like manzanita
will start blooming. Imagine, flowers
in the winter! But this is how the
chaparral has adapted to the
Mediterranean-type climate in
which it thrives.
In the summer and autumn
heat, chaparral can catch fire
because it is so dry. These fires,
especially if strong winds blow, can
burn thousands of acres. In
Southern California, strong Santa
Ana winds from the desert are
responsible for spreading the
largest fires. Such large fires are
natural and the chaparral can
recover as long as there are not too
many. In the past, before humans
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came to California, the chaparral
burned probably once every 50 to
100 years. Now, with so many
fires caused by people, some
areas covered by chaparral are
burning every ten years or less.
This is not enough time for the
chaparral to recover. When this
happens, the chaparral habitat is
destroyed and is usually replaced
by non-native weeds and grasses.
If given enough time,
however, chaparral plants can
respond to fire in special ways.
Some shrubs send up tiny green
shoots from their root burls a few
days after the fire is out. Within a
month or two these re-sprouting
shrubs decorate the burned
Re-sprouting chamise shrubs
landscape with little green bundles
of leaves.
Other shrubs are completely
burned up in the fire, but live on
through the thousands of seeds
they have produced over the years.
The California Chaparral Institute
Ceanothus seedlings
These seeds can hide in the soil for
a century or more. They only
become seedlings after their seeds
have been cracked open by heat or
are exposed to chemicals found in
smoke and charred wood. Some
shrubs can both re-sprout and
produce seedlings after a fire.
There are also many annual
wildflowers that appear after a fire.
The seeds of these plants were
produced after the last blaze and
remain dormant until fire awakens
them. This is why the first spring
after a fire, burned chaparral
hillsides are often covered with
thousands of beautiful wildflowers
such as orange poppies, white
snapdragons, and purple lupines.
Sometimes these wildflowers will
return a second year, but will then
disappear until after the next blaze.
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Wildflowers after a fire
Within a few years after a fire, resprouting plants and shrub seedlings
start to take over. In 15-20 years, the
chaparral is able to cloak the land with
its green, soft velvet cover again.
Plant Life in the Chaparral
The most common shrub in the
chaparral is chamise. It has tiny leaves
that help the plant keep its moisture. In
the summer, its creamy white blossoms
turn golden brown, coloring the hillsides
with a rich cinnamon glow. Mountain
lilac, or ceanothus, is another common
chaparral shrub. In the spring, these
shrubs decorate mountains and hills
with beautiful white and purple flowers.
The name "chaparral" comes from
Spanish word chaparro, which
describes areas in Spain covered by
scrub oak, another common chaparral
shrub. Scrub oak is like a short oak tree
with very small acorns.
Manzanita, with its smooth red
bark and flat, oval leaves, is a shrub
The California Chaparral Institute
most people recognize in the
chaparral. Its urn-shaped
flowers are an important
source of nectar for
hummingbirds and insects.
Old-growth chaparral, over a
century in age, can form a
canopy more than twenty feet
high with huge manzanitas
having stems the size of a
person's waist.
This was the favored
habitat of the now extinct California
grizzly bear. These giant mammals
made tunnels through the dense
chaparral, placing their big paws in
the same spots generation after
generation. A few of these trails
may still exist, hidden under the
shrub canopy for you to discover.
Old-growth
manzanita
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Snakes, like the red diamond
rattlesnake and the gopher snake,
also play an important role in the
chaparral's food web. Western
fence lizards and horned lizards
hunt for the smallest prey.
Woodrats are common in the
chaparral, but you will probably
see their nests before you ever
see them running along the stems
of shrubs. Their nests are made of
large piles of sticks and leaves.
These nests are also home to
many other animals including
mice, lizards, and insects.
Baby cougar. Photo by Deborah Knapp.
Wildlife in the Chaparral
The most common bird in the
chaparral is the wrentit, a small gray
songbird with a long tail. Its call has
the rhythm of a bouncing ping-pong
ball and is often the first chaparral
sound you hear in the morning, and
the last one at dusk. A pair of wrentits
can live up to ten years and nest in the
same small territory their entire lives.
Other birds you may see include
the gray and blue scrub jay, family
groups of California quail, and
roadrunners running about looking for
a meal. If you are lucky, you may even
see a California condor soar overhead.
The chaparral provides one of the last
habitats for this extremely rare bird.
Since the grizzly bear became
extinct, the largest predators in the
chaparral now are cougars, bobcats,
coyotes, and gray foxes.
The California Chaparral Institute
A woodrat
and her
nest. Photo
by Scott
Tremor.
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Pocket gophers are also
common in the chaparral, digging
their tunnels and raising small
mounds of dirt in the rocky soil.
People and the Chaparral
California Indians used many
of the natural resources found in the
chaparral. For example, they ground
manzanita berries into a meal to
make mush or cakes. Manzanita
leaves were steeped in water to
make a tea to treat several
illnesses. In caves deep in the
mountains, California Indians drew
images inspired by many chaparral
animals such as grizzly bears,
lizards, and insects.
Chaparral is often one of the
easiest habitats to find near your
home where you can experience an
undisturbed native plant community.
Although it is almost impossible to
Chumash Indian cave paintings
walk through, you can usually find
a trail or road nearby that allows
you to explore its hidden secrets.
Chaparral provides not only
an important habitat for all the
animals and plants we share the
earth with, but also gives us a
beautiful place to enjoy nature.
Chaparral is one of California's
most important natural treasures.
Chaparral covered mountain
The California Chaparral Institute
www.californiachaparral.org
Originally published in The Chaparralian, Vol 6, #3. 2009
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